Sunday, 26 July 2015

A film maker at heart, or maybe a story teller at heart, no matter what you work on, that is how you pay the mortgage. What you do is give it your best and ignore the critics who find deep and meaningful stuff in there you never even thought of....
So, for years I have been at it; IMDB lists way less than half of it. When I left the music industry it was pop videos, then I produced The Krays as Dominic's assistant (Ray was in Canada on Reflecting Skin) and when I went on my own it was The Usual Children, The Scarlet Tunic .....many more as producer or executive, then Devil's Gate was my next outing as a director.
Lately the films have been Freight with my friends at Yorkshire TV and from Emmerdale, we all took out 4 weeks to make that. Then the long awaited BULA QUO which we did after a meeting on Coronation Street.
Then for years I jumped between Emmerdale, films and Mrs Brown's Boys, what a combination! Last year was a full on 7 day a week, 18 hours a day ride on Strike Back. I actually think the hours were longer ..... I needed an assistant really, or two. Not until Wayne joined me for two episodes did the pressure start to lift.
This year has been totally different. I belong to a group called the British Screen Advisory Council, which draws a wide variety of people from the heads of Sky and BBC Worldwide, to media analysts from PWC to YouTube Bloggers. The trends and watching habits are watched and studied. They have to be, this is a business. It was obvious Netflix had started to bleed the way. When Amazon bought Love Film they positioned themselves in second place and third comes Sky in the ability and want to spend on new drama. The traditional broadcasters are falling way behind, despite government support, lottery money and more. It is obvious we will all be watching content, on whatever screen, from a web based feed not an ariel. Change is the only thing you can guarantee.
It felt obvious then to dive in and start a web series, but a web series is not just about film making. It is about understanding the viewing habits and social media habits of the consumer. It is predicted most people now have 3 or 4 screens. Whilst watching TV 80% of viewers at some time open a second screen.
Before you question that, TV, Desktop, iPad, phone = 4. It is expected that you most people will have 10 screens soon.

I was on a lifeboat recently, being ferried to the port, and in the lifeboat a screen played adverts. It happens as you queue in the post office, where ever. So, when the two girls suggested to me a web series, and Buster wanted to make something more than a short, all I had to do was join them together. I was on a ship in my cabin when I took some old ideas and writings and worked them into Shades Of Bad. As I write this, Episode 9 has just gone live. Shades Of Bad Episode 9
If would you like to explore more of the series, please like the FaceBook Page and subscribe to the YouTube Channel to get notifications of new episodes.